>
> All subjects, from architecture to physics, from literary criticism to
> economics, develop what Thomas Kuhn called paradigms – assumptions common to
> all practitioners and assumed to represent universal truth until a new
> paradigm displaces the old.
>
However, in science there is also the test of reasonable conformity to
observations. The problem lies in the paradigm-influenced decision as to
what are significant observations and what is noise, but many claims are
sufficiently discordant with observation to be eliminated.
>Big advances come through the paradigm shifts<
Based on Kuhn's circular definition. In reality, they can also come through
technological advances and through novel discoveries within a paradigm.
>The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, an elegant suspension bridge in Washington
State, carried traffic for four months in 1940. In a high wind, the flat
deck acquired a beautiful wave pattern. The oscillations grew larger and
larger until the roadway finally disintegrated into Puget Sound.<
The wind wasn't all that high; it just hit the right frequency.
Every crank idea claims to be introducing a novel paradigm, unfairly
repressed by the hidebound establishment. Legitimate ideas can suffer the
same fate, but it's important to recognize that greater opportunity for
acceptance of outside ideas carries costs as well as benefits.
When I was a graduate student, my advisor had a grant application rejected.
One review claimed that, for particular fossils mentioned, it was a)
impossible to obtain them and b) would not have preserved what we wanted to
look at anyway. At the time this review was returned, he was observing the
structures of interest in some of those specimens. Certainly peer review
can fail. On the other hand, Emiliani's proposal for absolute peer review
shows the problems of freely allowing advocates of new ideas to be their own
judges. He received his own grant application to review through some
clerical error. He wrote a brief reply saying it was the best proposal he
had ever seen, that it deserved to be funded at twice the requested level,
and that he would be glad to review more of Emiliani's proposals as needed.
Most peer review allows you to mention if there is anyone who probably
should not be a reviewer as well as those who you think would be good
reviewers.
--
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
Received on Fri May 26 13:48:19 2006
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